


Stanley and the Revelation

by magpiesflyinghome



Series: Somewhere We Knew Each Other [3]
Category: I Am Not Okay with This (TV 2020), IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Anti-Semitism (mentioned), Anxiety Attacks, Blood and Gore, Character Study, Gen, I Apologize For The Edgy Nature Of This One, Internalized Homophobia, Referenced Child Neglect, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Stanley Barber Is Not Okay, The Turtle Didn't Think About The Consequences, Whump, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:27:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24305905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpiesflyinghome/pseuds/magpiesflyinghome
Summary: It's different than last time.
Relationships: Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Series: Somewhere We Knew Each Other [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697443
Comments: 7
Kudos: 39





	1. we put our blood in bags

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the Isaiah Mustafa Fan Club](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=the+Isaiah+Mustafa+Fan+Club).



Stan mainly laments that he hates the horrible memories flooding his night hours. Although, lest he admit it, there are happy ones that he clings to when he wakes up sobbing into his pillow. A bright smile and a joke he can’t hear past his garbled senses, and the stern blue eyes of someone he can’t place. (The Bar Mitzvah is one of his favorites to remember, or to hold on to, but he would deny it if anyone asked.) There is something big that he still can’t reminisce besides Richie, someone just as important. Maybe it’s one of the names from a past dream, or maybe it’ll be revealed soon. He wishes that whatever being that is relaying this would just make up their mind and send everything. He wants to know why this is happening, who is this person, who is Richie, why does he see endless nightmares of gore and pain; watching these blurry faces get torn to shreds by pincers and claws and a bloody maw that laughs, spitting blood at his feet.

He wants to ask Syd if she has been getting them as well, those repeated images of children screaming, their cries out to him to save them, please save me, Stan, _please please please_. There is another piece, adults shrieking, they become interlaced with the children, begging please Stanley just kill me, end me _, take me out of[my misery](https://twitter.com/brandon_severs/status/1268646714455412736?s=21) since you were too much of a coward to come save me_. Maybe they are one in the same, maybe they aren’t connected, but why are they screaming for him? Why do they blame him for not saving them? He doesn’t know and he just wants answers, he wants to be told why he was apparently a coward, why these people are worth saving to him.

The dreams hardest to watch are the ones of Richie, his usually happy-go-lucky grin tainted by blood-red wine dripping down his chin, his glasses broken, and his lips sewn shut. Sometimes Stan sees him pulled apart limb from limb, others he sees him impaled, decapitated, drowned, dismantled, ravaged, and quietened to the small squeak of a mouse. It pains Stan to sees these, to see this figment of his imagination so thoroughly ripped to shreds that maybe Stan doesn’t know if sleeping is worth it anymore.

He puts the up the farce for a while that he is okay, Syd doesn’t notice much either way. She’s always in her own world, never truly perceiving how much her presence affects him, or how much he is holding back from her. Stan knows he looks like an open book, but these memories are held behind his lips with a tight padlock and chain, the key in his stomach, and bolt-cutters thrown in the landfill. He really tries to continue up the monotonous and trivial teenage problems, asking Syd to homecoming, help Syd with her secret superpowers, but sometimes it still slips out. He’ll slump against a table for a millisecond, the weight of these foreign hallucinations finally toppling over him and crushing him in the completely alien feeling of fear.

To think that Stan hasn’t felt fear is completely nonsensical, a lie through and through, considering most humans feel some sort of fear throughout childhood, whether it be of the dark or _spiders_. He just has never felt it to the degree that he feels it now, as it overtakes his body, covering him in a shell that binds him to his silence. It’s something he can’t easily explain because he knows that there is something and that it must be gone. That thought never quells those screaming instincts to run and _return home_. But where is home? Is it Richie? Or that small town they waded through in their formative years? Is it those terrifying blue eyes that tell him that the promise is final? What promise? When did he promise those baby blues anything? _Maybe it was…_

The biggest problem, though, is that the fear has started to give him anxiety attacks. He hides the shaking hands easily, but he can’t eat. Syd doesn’t notice, and really, he isn’t asking her to, but he desperately wants to bring it up. To ask, “Please, Syd, do you see them too?” and hopefully get her sharp answer like a blade cutting him free from his binds. He hates that she doesn’t notice and that no one else actually cares, and he is tearing himself apart. The pieces of him that existed before these memories, before the suit, are starting to get lost in the fray. He feels like he is under a fog that cannot be escaped, he is no longer Stanley Barber. He is an abomination, a hastily made concoction of a dead man and an unloved teenager.

His mind tries to work one million miles per second on only an hour of sleep, while also doing work and scribbling on his schoolwork. It’s all starting to seem meaningless, this continued sludge of life towards the final answer about what is going on with him, with the memories and the names that are slowly returning to him. He wishes that time could slow down, let him find it out, let him return to them. Maybe he shouldn’t be here, he should be with _them_ , their loud laughs taunting him about some activity he enjoys, and a warm hand interlaced with his own. He wants to return to that life, where people actually _cared_ about if he cried his eyes out during the night. It doesn’t matter that he is scared, he has them to _hold_ him, _protect_ him, make him _strong_. Why does he have to be here? A place where no one gives two shits about him, one where he is alone, the weirdo, the freak, the _loser_. He just wants to be happy, is that too much to ask for?

He is sure that happiness is a ginormous thing to beg of the asshole that put him in this position, slipping these memories and terrors through cracks in the universe and into his brain.

Going about his normal routine always feels menial, dealing with his fellow peers and their sneers and snickers, visiting Margorie in downtown, and returning to an empty home and considering drinking his whole stash of alcohol. He never does, by the way. He just considers it, staring at the bottles, and then being thrown into a memory of shouting. It breaks his heart just hearing it and feeling the hand pressed into his own shaking, and a whimper is sounded into his neck. He rubs his free hand down the back of the person trying to burrow themselves into his chest, and he tells them that they’ll get out together. They just need a car and then they can get out, take the others, and never look back.

He knows deep down that it was Richie in that memory, but the closeness of the moment is so precious and intimate that he wants to keep it away from the many times he heard half a dirty joke from Richie in another scene.

What feels so goddamn tragic is that maybe he wishes he could see them again, these people. These friends. He knows Richie is important, possibly more important to him than the rest, but he wishes he could be with them. He wonders what life would’ve been if they all stole a car and left, would they have been happy enough that whatever is paying them back wouldn’t feel the need to do so in a place they all don’t exist, or maybe they do and they just aren’t meant to meet. Perhaps they were never supposed to know each other in the first place, their overlapping hands and screams of delight, they were supposed to separate. Stan hates thinking about that reality, where he never even knew Richie, one where he was alone, like now, so utterly alone. That line of thinking always makes Stan cling harder, desperately trying to keep them closer to him, so that there is a shred of possibility that he will stop feeling so broken and isolated all of the fucking time.

A ball hitting a strike pulls Stan out of his stupor, and he resets the pins. Staring at the ten pins with such a disconnected version of reality, when only three of the pins were hit, he keeps staring. Seven pins. Seven pins, and a giant red and lumbering ball about to knock them over. The next turn onto two were hit, and Stan is so entranced he didn’t realize he hadn’t hit the reset pin button. He hits it and steps up, _holy fuck_.

He keeps seeing pieces form in the most random of things, the cast of a kid at the bowling alley, a red balloon at a car lot, thick glasses sitting atop a freckled kid’s nose, fiery red hair, a flute player in the street, and when he sees a picture of a sheep he doesn’t know why the image of a bolt-gun surfaces. Stan is starting to see less and less of himself in the mirror, as these new pieces resurface. He just needs to get an inch closer and maybe he’ll be able to put this behind him, or maybe he’ll get to leave this plane of reality. He only noticed that the more he finds out the hazier the image of himself becomes, and more dread sinks into him. He wishes to stop it, but the habitual searching for more memories in pieces of clothing continues, and it’s starting to look bare, but then he finds a crucial fragment.

He’s not at Margorie’s this time, he’s at the Community Aid on the fringes of town. The men’s t-shirts are one of his favorite sections to browse, just because the wackiest shit is usually there, hidden in-between the fundraiser shirts and the work polos. He was lucky he was doing a cruise when he found it, a black t-shirt that feels beat to hell, with a crackling logo displaying a band (called Echo & The Bunnymen) and the weirdest imagery of a [rabbit](https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-qsxrjdugod/images/stencil/1280w/products/83561/285617/il_570xN.1828655957_iteb__04150.1565891683.jpg?c=2&imbypass=on). The same draw from the suit is pulling him in and he immediately takes it off the rack.

He doesn’t try it on, because he knows how exactly it will fit. He knows that it is supposed to hang off his frame, sheltering him like his friend once did. It’s one the other him slept in, holding him in the depressing but familiar fog of cigarette smoke and sweat. A gift, maybe. From who? It depends. Do they mean as much to him as Richie does, or do they pass quickly? Maybe it was from Richie, left one day and became a piece of him.

Stan didn’t mean to cut the rest of the shopping trip short, but he needed to be alone. He needed to figure out what memories will attack him this time; he needed to cry. It’s a quick decision to just walk towards the register with his small pile and to just pay as quickly as possible and hoping that the teenage girl there doesn’t ask him why he is shaking. Maybe she won’t notice the new tremble that is wracking his body, most people these days don’t seem to spot it. Or maybe he’s just gotten particularly good at hiding it. He desperately wishes it’s the latter.

He takes his bag of clothes out to the car and he slides into the driver’s seat. There is a moment that he sits, taking a breath in, and internally deciding on what to do. He could go back to his house, he could go to a backroad, or he could sit here in this parking lot, sobbing.

Bawling his eyes out and screaming until his throat felt raw was what he wanted to do, to just release all of the feelings bustling around under his skin, trying to break free from their fleshy enclosure. They beat at him, screaming to be let free, shout, cry, hit, do anything to let us be free, Stanley. We need to be _free_.

The car roars to life as he twists his keys in the ignition, and he knows he needs to go home. He backs out of his space and drives the safest he can to the other side of the lot and into a neighborhood, and then towards his side of town. The radio gets on his nerves on the drive, but his whole entire mental fortitude is centered on getting home safely, to not die.

Now that’s a question: would anyone miss him if he did? Die, he means. Sometimes he isn’t sure, other days he is one hundred percent sure what the answer is (no). A lot of people would try to convince him the opposite, trying to name people who would, but that list is only two people and one of them hates his guts. _Try to guess which one, Stanny boy_.

Stan pulls into his driveway in one piece and he is a whirlwind as he exits the car and stomps towards the front door. His keys jingle and scrape on his doorknob as he tries to get into his house. The door swings in recklessly and he slams it shut, twisting the locks automatically. His dad isn’t on the couch, and he doesn’t hear the shower running, so he’s still **alone**. He barrels towards his room, and he pounds down the stairs.

The bed squeaks as he lands on it, but he holds the bag to his chest, and it hits him. _A memory. His brain is weeping out for him, why is he so..._

_(scared?)_

He is sitting on his bed, a book splayed on his knees. The words are whirring through his brain, and he knows that he’s read the book before, but he desperately needs a distraction. A boundary from the new hate speech spewed at him, the words slowly sinking into his skin and picking at an internal scab that never healed. He knows that he is better, that those bullshit words shouldn’t mean anything to him, but he can’t help but internalize it. It’s shouted at him every single day, what else is he supposed to think? Is he supposed to just ignore it? To walk through the halls of the high school like he isn’t being told to leave town and never return. Or maybe he should believe the hurricane of death threats and act on them, like the back part of his mind is telling him to.

There isn’t much that can stop the swirling messages in his head, and he knows it’s going to get worse. He knows his grip on reality is slipping from him quickly, and soon he will be nothing but a man paralyzed in bed, shouting and scratching at the _scars_ on his face. There is a small urge to rip himself from his skin, to shed it like a snake so that his next form shall be revealed, and he’ll be a whole new Stanley. One without the scars and disdain; a better one.

A loud clatter interrupts the spinning gears in his head, and he faces his window, knowing exactly what is making that sound. He sighs and closes the book, walking towards the glass. Another ding is sounded as he watches a pebble assault his windowpane, and he switches the lock. He pushes it up and awaits the gangly limbs that are about to enter his room, getting dirt on his windowsill and messing up the arrangement of the curtains. He knows he won’t complain about it though, considering who it is. Richie pops his head in first and smiling at Stan, his shit-eating grin turning soft at the edges. It’s a smile that only Stan sees, and it warms his heart in a way he knows could get them both killed.

He knows there is usually a reason Richie showed up, whether it be because of Richie’s home life getting progressively worse, or for a fact that Richie’s knows something is up with Stan. Stan would be the last to admit it, but he enjoyed the loud-mouthed boy’s company, more than even his dear Bill; _that he takes to his grave_.

It was always like this between them, knowing whenever the other is off-kilter, but never in the normal way, like asking a question or bringing it up. They tried to explain it to the losers once about how it works, but they got confused glances instead. A killer alien clown was more believable than the fact that Stan knew Richie was struggling by the shift in his eyebrow. Okay, maybe it does sound ridiculous, that they are attuned to each other’s constant shifts and temperaments, but it has _always_ been that way. It wasn’t taught to him; it was already ingrained in him as a kid. Maybe it was the fact they had to protect each other, maybe it was the fact that the slightly less-than poised toddler that was Stanley Uris found reprieve in the chaotic ruffian that was toddler version of his best friend and they inexplicably started something that never ends.

Stan had given up on counting on the losers to understand his relationship with Richie, but they all seemed inclined to believe that Stan hated him, while never asking him what he thought. If that was truly the case, Stan would’ve left years ago, abandoning Eddie and Bill as well. Stan knew Richie was annoying, obnoxious to a point, but he was still Stan’s best friend.

There was just a side to him they didn’t know yet, the one that sits cuddled next to Stan on a blanket in the middle of the barrens, trying horribly to whistle at the birds, or the one that visits him on holidays with a small smile and the biggest thanks. The Richie that only Stan knew, but also in turn Richie had gotten to know a more riled and playful Stan, the him that makes jokes back or laughs until he cries at something stupid. _The others never saw that piece, and it breaks Stanley Barber’s heart._ They were as close as two humans could be, even sharing Stan’s twin bed when the nightmares get too rough for either of them to stomach. _It was just the next step for them to share clothes_.

Generally, Stan would find someone knowing his mood off the drop of a pin extremely disconcerting, possibly even uncomfortable. He holds his feelings extremely close to his chest, in a box covered in padlocks and a heavy-duty chain. For some reason, though, Richie knowing his moods, his ticks, his small twitches felt so comforting. He no longer had to drown. While the rest of it was particularly hard, after the giant clown, when Stan took to hiding himself away. It was hard for him to avoid the person who half-lives in his house, but he somehow succeeded, until right _now_.

The scariest thing, at present, is that Richie seems to be in a good mood, which means that he _noticed_.

Now, Stan loves his friends, he really does, but sometimes they are dumber than a box of rocks. He has been slowly distancing himself from them for the last two weeks, little things, really. Just skipping out on a quarry day, leaving from the clubhouse early, slipping away from the cafeteria and eating lunch in an abandoned classroom, and not answering their calls. There isn’t a one particular reason he is doing it, truly it’s a combination of everything, of It, of his feelings, of his fear, of the future that he can somehow see, and the fact that he cares about them so much he feels like he is going to die.

There are also the thoughts that have crossed through his mind; ones he wouldn’t say to a living soul: how he is worthless, he isn’t interesting or funny, like his friends, and he is just a waste of resources. The world would be better if he didn’t exist, and the worst thing is he can’t formulate why he feels this way, but he does. It’s underlying, making him doubt every decision he makes and making him so closed off that he can’t even tell his parents he’s thinking about walking on the train tracks near Neibolt. They wouldn’t _understand_ , anyway.

“Hey Staniel,” Richie says, sending Stan out of his daze and back into reality. Stan blinks for a moment and looks at him, and there is something about Richie’s expression that made his stomach furl with guilt, and it sends a shockwave of electricity up his spine. His eyebrows are slightly furrowed, and he keeps nervously licking his lips, and Stan wishes he could look away. “Is there a reason you entered through my window and not the front door? Or did you lose the key again?” Stan patronizes, trying to ignore Richie’s eyes boring holes into his psyche. Richie just smiles, all teeth, baring his canines in a way that screamed, “ _You want to fight? I’ll fight_ ,” and he sidles forward, getting in Stan’s face.

Stan swallows harshly, and he looks away from Richie. “I didn’t lose my key, just thought I would take a trip down memory lane,” Richie croons, and he steps even closer to Stan, invading any believed boundary of personal space. Stan scoffs and crosses his arms, he stares at one of the papers that are hanging off of his desk, the straight line slowly curving in its’ new position. “And I’ve only lost my key once,” Richie says, and he adjusts his glasses, his giant bug eyes still staring down at Stan _. There is something they aren’t talking about, bigger than the clown that sometimes fills his visions, or maybe it’s something he notices as an outsider._

He huffs and moves his brown eyes up to Richie’s and in the next moment he knows, Richie _knows_ and has been worried sick for _weeks_. He doesn’t need to ask, but now the feelings he has been holding back are now rushing forth, towards his eyes with a tsunami of tears. His legs shake and he drops his arms and lets himself fall into Richie’s chest. His friend’s spindly pale arms slowly move up his back and rest under his shoulder blades, and he feels a chin being place atop his curls.

Their intertwined limbs are wracked with tremors as Stan sobs, and he can’t contain any of his thoughts anymore, they are leaking out of his tear ducts and onto Richie’s black t-shirt. They shift every so slightly and Stan tries to burrow himself into his best friend, trying to hide every vulnerable piece of himself from the world. Richie is the only one who needs to know that he’s broken, that his pieces don’t fit, that there is something wrong with him. He gets it, and he smiles and then tries to glue Stan back together, like Humpty-dumpty. Richie had once joked it was like repairing a murder, and Stan had hated the joke so much that his gut hurt when he stopped laughing, and he told Richie to go choke on hay. His best friend had just snorted and told him to go fuck a tree, and Stan had flipped him off.

It is a while before the tears dry, his cheeks a soggy and red mess, and his hair was absolutely untamed under Richie’s chin, and his yarmulke had fallen to the floor at some point after Richie ran his fingers through the small ringlets at the back of Stan’s head. He pulls back, sniffling, and looks at the floor.

“You don’t need to hide from me, Stan,” Richie whispers and Stan nods. They stare at each other for a moment, breathing. Stan’s nose is beet red and his short huffs send a vapor of hot air against Richie’s chin. The growth spurt that Richie has recently gone through has made him a couple of inches taller than Stan, which makes this feel quite awkward. Stan can no longer see Richie’s eyes without looking up, which sent a small divide between their usual means of communication. It’s awkward looking up, his mind tries to supply, but he knows why it makes him feel uneasy. It means they are growing up, no longer the almost pre-teens that shoved an alien clown down a well.

The more they grow the more they will change and leave him. Stan pulls himself back against Richie, sniffing away the growing phlegm trying to flow from his nose. “Don’t leave,” he whispers into his best friend’s shoulder. Richie doesn’t respond, but if he held Stan a slight bit tighter, he wouldn’t have noticed. The taller boy cards a hand through Stan’s hair, releasing the curls to pop out in even more ludicrous ways than before, if Stan wasn’t sobbing, he would’ve laughed. “Wasn’t planning on it, Stan,” he whispered into Stan’s hair. Stan’s hands curl into Richie’s shirt, pushing himself further into his best friend. “I wouldn’t go anywhere without you,” Richie says, one of his hands moving to pet the front of Stan’s hair. Stan hums into the wet material of his best friend’s shirt.

“Ah, I’m sorry about your shirt,” Stan mutters, and he feels his neck flushing and the embarrassment heavy in his stomach. Richie let out a laugh, “It’s just tears, Stanno. I’m not gonna melt.” Stan smiles up at him, “Okay, wicked witch of the west.” Richie releases a cackle, “Shut up, my little pretty before I kill you and your little dog too!” His voice is a mangled attempt at a witch. Stan bursts out into heaving laughter, and he holds onto Richie to keep upright. “You’re so dumb,” Stan wipes the tear rolling down his cheek. Richie blows a raspberry, “Eh, you still love me.”

Stan can’t find it in himself to lie, “Yeah, I do.” Richie smiles at him, and Stan fights the turmoil in himself about that grin, and he beams back. They stand there like a pair of idiots, holding each other. “Uh, I’ll get you a replacement shirt,” Stan breaks the silence, and he goes to scratch one of the scars on his face. Richie nods his head and moves his arms away from Stan. The feeling of disappointment floods him, he just ruined a moment. He quickly goes through his t-shirt drawer, finding the one he has been dreading giving back. It will still fit Richie, though, so he picks it up. “Here, you left this in here a couple of months ago,” and he hands the shirt to him. His friend immediately takes off his soaked shirt and ushers on the new shirt. It still somewhat fits him, but it’s slightly smaller on his scrawny limbs.

Richie places the soiled shirt into his hands and Stan walks towards the radiator next to his closet. “Are you staying the night in here?” He asks, looking back up at Richie. His friend shoots him a big and goofy looking grin, “Sure am, Stan the Man.” Stan rolls his eyes and a small smile is hanging on his lips, “I’ll get out your spare toothbrush then, Mr. Scarecrow.” Stan grabs his pajamas and goes towards the bathroom in the hallway. He quickly changes and brushes his teeth, placing Richie’s on the counter. He re-enters his room and lets Richie have full-reign of the bathroom, while Stan turns out one of his lamps, and plugging in the nightlight.

When his friend enters the room again, he lets out a little snort, “Aw pulling out the nightlight Stanby, what? Are you afraid I’ll ravish you in the night?” Richie suggests, wiggling his eyebrows. Stan throws a pencil at him and Richie catches, “Nice try, cupcake, but I was a basketball player in my past life.” Stan snickers, “Is it because you can handle balls?” Richie starts to cackle, “Stan-boy gets off a **good** one!” Stan starts to laugh along, proud of himself for making Richie laugh. “Oh, you’ll go far, kid,” Richie says, looping his arm on top of Stan’s shoulders and pulling him close. He’s warm and has this aura of comfort that Stan just loves to dwell in. It’s his favorite place to be, right next to his best friend, them against the world no matter what. There is a bittersweet quality to this memory that he can’t place, it didn’t exist with it originally. _Something bad happened._

When he and Richie slip into bed, clad in their pajamas, Stan falls asleep with a smile on his face. The nightmares let up for one night, _so that he could enjoy it before…_

_(the world fell apart.)_

Stan is crying so heavily he can’t breathe, holding the plastic coffin filled with something he treasures so much. He hates how precious he thinks these memories of Richie are, how sacred they are to him he could never grace them upon anyone else. They are for him to see, for him to remember. He left Richie, and he knows that they couldn’t help it. It still doesn’t make that smile hurt any less, even when it’s not pointed at him. Stan needs to get himself together, to decide once and for all if he is going to believe they are real, that this isn’t some sort of mental break. He tries to act all sure of himself that they were real, that there was a time before him that existed outside of his home, where someone like him held Richie’s hand and helped him defeat some monster. A monster? Why does only the word monster come to mind for the scary force? What did they fight? There is just something about it that doesn’t feel real, it feels like it’s directly copied from some weird soulmate book.

Maybe Stan should look into multi-dimension theory in soulmates, and maybe it would help hi— _Stanley, get a fucking grip._ There has to be a reason, there has to be some _logical_ reason he sees Richie and feels so complete and whole and like he’s finally returned to a place he has never been. Why do those hazy visions do that to him? Why do they assault him over random things? Why _him_? They could’ve chosen one of the others, one of the more deserving and kind ones, like Mike. He deserved better, but Stanley Barber doesn’t know _why_. The Stan he is in those hazy dreams could tell you _why_.

He’s angry at whatever put him in this position, _that fuckin’ turtle_. Why did they decide to taunt him with someone he will never see again? What sick fucking pleasure do they get for maiming him like this? Stan is so unsure of himself and so angry that there is **nothing** he can do to stop it because even if he is actively not trying to further these memories, they keep showing up. What makes matters worse is that there is a part of him that wants it to stop, to _please please please stop I can’t take this anymore_ , but to make it even more heinous there is a small shred of himself that has been returned. He hates that part of himself, that small shriveled piece that is content with the nightmares and the memories and the Richie and the fucking dumb blue eyes asking him about a promise he never even made. Stan wants to return to the days where he just sold marijuana and went to high school, instead of this dumb mortal coil bullshit.

The fact that Syd has fucking superpowers has stopped being the weirdest part of his life is quite indicative of how fucked this is, and Stan wishes he could just _ask_ her if she felt it too. The issue with that is she doesn’t care; she doesn’t listen to a word he says these days. Stan is never going to be on her radar as something to tend to, he is just someone to conveniently hang out with for free weed, and he knows she doesn’t actually like him. It stings to know deep down that the one friend he has right now would not give a shit if he dropped dead, but it beats his dad.

Stan just wishes he could have Richie back, and it’s stupid, _that want_ , that greedy feeling of needing comfort. He hates that Richie would say he understands and would hold him and tell him that they will get through this together. It won’t be this time because Stan will never see him again. Richie is just a figure piece inside of Stan’s head, leading him more off the beaten path and towards something dark and terrifying. Whatever Richie is leading him to, Stan knows he won’t like, but he still wants him all the same. He wants the dumbass’s stained shirts and endless cigarette smoke to cover him in a blanket of familiarity, to just be held in the arms one more time of his… There isn’t a word that Stan knows what to describe Richie is to him, to the Stan in his head, but he knows he wants what they had back. Stan wants to stop being alone, _for once_.

When the sadness finally subsides for a moment, Stan attempts to sit up. His head feels like cotton, and a headache starts to rush to his temples. He fishes his hand into the bag, grabbing the shirt from its slightly warm grip. There it is, the shirt that sat on his radiator, and became a piece of him just the same as any other thing Richie left in his room. Another wave of tears hits him in the face, and he just laughs, “I think you left this up here, Rich.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to the Isaiah Mustafa Fan Club  
> \- Roman, Luci, Rhu, and Sarah  
> You guys are some of the only people keeping me sane rn, thanks. (I love you losers sm.)


	2. we don't want water

Stan really thought that first memory was going to be the end of it, that there was only one specific instance in which that shirt was important, but he was proven wrong a day later. He is getting ready for bed, agonizing over the fact that he has a date for homecoming, and he has this distinct feeling that his world will be inexplicably turned upside down after this weekend. Stan really doesn’t like that feeling, because it turns around in his gut, a never-ending sludge that will block anything from escaping under its wrath. _He wants Richie, he wants Richie, he wants Richie._ He tries so hard to push those feelings down, to try and drown them in that sludge of impending doom. They escape through his fingers, though, drifting like sand and sticking above to the walls of his stomach.

He wants to ask Syd about it, and he hates that he has to talk to her about this because her face was finally cemented as a member in his dream last night, in the memory that he ran through. It was one of the better ones, _and it started with a…_

_(bird.)_

A loud chirp echoes down from the trees, pulling him from his thoughts and back into reality. Stan was sitting on a blanket in the barrens, his father’s old binoculars on his left thigh, and his bird book on his right. The many different songs of the birds are overlaying his senses, and he feels content. He leans back on his hands and tilts his head up, letting the breeze swipe his facial features, and permitting the sunshine on his nose to warm him up in the cool shade. The barrens never really had enough trees to make a canopy, but they cover the sky in frenzied clumps. Although his favorite spot to bird watch was in the perfect space, it was at the center of a circle of trees, so he gets to look at the bright blue skyline. It was going to be cold soon, the fringes of fall making their way through the trees. Some of the leaves have already turned yellow and orange, and the tinges of brown are slowly starting to envelop the older foliage.

He lays down, shifting the objects in his lap onto the blanket next to him. Stan sighs, and closes his eyes for a moment, allowing all of the sounds of nature to overtake him. The rushing river nearby is like a thick melody, and the birdsong is setting an extremely unsteady tempo. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you asked Stan why he liked to birdwatch he’d give the simple answer: because it is calm. Stan’s head is always a swirling firestorm of thoughts and emotions, never-ending and ruthless to anything in its path. Those broken shards of his brain are only at peace when he is placed in this little haven, where he doesn’t need to think about his future, about leaving his friends, and the way that his father can’t look him in the eye anymore. In a way, it’s funny, the embarrassment that his father feels, and Richie always laughs when Stan’s dad ducks his head and leaves the room, not saying a word to his only child. They both know how much it stings, but they don’t talk about it, they just return to whatever improv game Richie coerced him into, or they continue to study for something that they both know is meaningless.

Stan knows that right now; life is pointless, all of this pent-up fear will mean nothing to anyone a couple of days from now, even as he continues to live. It will mean nothing to him when he leaves in a year, they will just be something in the back of his mind that maybe existed at one point. There was a time where those feelings were all-consuming, where they controlled him in a way no others could. They’ll sit there and eat away at the back part of his sanity, because nothing can stop the hot acidic way those specific feelings beat through his chest and work their way up his throat, to just be swallowed down once again. It feels like he is going throw up some of these days, the way acid reflux continues to play with the stomach, making the unsuspecting victim always feel sick to the core. He wants to destroy that feeling, dilute it to the point where he no longer feels that big thrum in his chest. Stan despises it, and he wishes he could change it. 

Really, that’s a topic that Stan doesn’t want to think about because it is a pit of lava that continues to boil behind Stan’s ribs over and over until one day it will _explode_. He wishes that water could wash it over, like an ocean of coldness that he could try to count as familiarity. (Spoiler: The bitter chill only makes the lava burn hotter.) It always returns, which Stan despises, these thoughts continue to flood back, and they keep _increasing_. He doesn’t want them to taint this place, his one place in which Richie has no influence. His mind can’t help but move back to the issue and he just wishes his brain could shut up for _one fucking minute_ or he knows he’ll go absolutely batshit.

His head just continues, overwhelming him with every single thought and feeling, _fuck_. Stan has never really said that he hates himself, but he _does_. There is no word in any human language to describe how much he absolutely detests himself and every single little thought or idea that passes through his head, or every shred of _that_ feeling that constricts him like the snake trying to persuade him to take that chance, _c’mon Stanley, it’s just between you and God, nobody will know how depraved you are_. He wants to tear his skin from his muscles, and directly destroy any piece of himself that is left because he is so disgusted with who he is under the surface. His feelings are never kind, or they are never enough, except for those stupid emotions that boil over the edges of a crucible in his chest. They make him feel _unclean_ , like one of the damned souls his father has told him about. His dad knows these feelings, and Stan wishes he knew how, because he never told a soul or a piece of paper about them. Those dumb red and hot feelings that make him squirm under a tight grip; he just wishes he was _free_ of them. He wishes he could just be normal, not as irrevocably fucked up as he is, and maybe then his dad would be proud of him. Or maybe his dad would show an inch or a centimeter of love towards him.

Maybe he wouldn’t have felt awful at his Bar Mitzvah and cried into the arms of his best friend on a piece of sidewalk. There are so many what-ifs about a life where Stan wasn’t what he is, and if maybe he was good enough. Maybe if Stan was just normal, he wouldn’t look at his best friend like that, maybe he wouldn’t have to wash his hands until they bled because he thought about him again. There isn’t a Jewish hell, but Stan knows if there was one, he would deserve to burn in it for these thoughts and feelings and dreams. He wishes that it was a secret, that he could at least keep it to himself, so that whenever someone calls him _that word_ he doesn’t feel himself die a little more because it’s true, it’s so true, and _they all know it._ They all know his _dirty little secret_ and they want him to know that, they want him to know he is a freak of nature for holding these thoughts, and with the boy living in his house _no doubt_ _(dirty Tozier boy corrupting our pure Stanley),_ Stan wishes he could _die_.

Stan wants to throw himself down the well in Neibolt, he wants to never face himself in the mirror again, because he is nothing but _a dirty and no-good f_ —the chitter of a bird interrupts his thoughts, pulling him from his downward spiral and back into the light blue sky and the swaying trees. Tears are streaming down the sides of his face and absorbing into the blanket underneath him. He wipes at the rest and sits up once more, pulling his knees to his chest. Stan folds himself into a ball, hoping for the bitter dark emotions to seep away from him, letting him be the hollow shell he is. He rests his head on his boney knees, trying to breathe slowly, to regain some semblance of calm. The bird titters a little louder, probably much closer than before, so Stan pulls the binoculars up from the blanket and holds them, searching for the direction the sound came from. It gets slightly closer and Stan is able to find it in the trees, a yellow and brown smudge, and he pulls the binoculars up to his eyes and focuses in on the small bird. It’s a Cape May Warbler, a rare migration, but one Stan is quite excited to see. The bird is male, which Stan can tell from its extremely bright yellow chest and the dark red spot around its’ eye. It notices him looking and releasing a loud note, then moves more into the tree branches.

He is about to try and get closer when something moves in front of his binoculars, a giant eyeball. Stan jumps and pulls them from his face, seeing the source of his fright, Richie and Bev. His best friend was cackling, and Stan hates the feeling in his stomach. _Dirty, dirty Stanley._ He frowns and watches as the duo walk towards his blanket, and the closer they get the more the fire in his chest tries to burn. Richie drops down next to him while Bev sits on one of the outer fringes of the blanket. They both reek of cigarette smoke, which gives Stan the answer to why they are both in the barrens. He sighs, placing the binoculars back in his lap and he tries to ignore the heat radiating off of Richie and onto his pant-leg. Richie lifts his arms to cover his face, “So Staniel, see any good birds?” Richie asks, his eyes meeting Stan’s through his interlocked fingers.

Richie usually asks this question whenever he intrudes on Stan’s birdwatching escapades. “Only a Cape May Warbler,” Stan replies, picking at his leg. He is trying to not meet Richie’s eyes, so that he doesn’t have to talk about it. He wishes to never talk about it, to just let everything fester in his chest until he dies so that he won’t have to confront anything. Stan wouldn’t have to explain why it hurts, that he doesn’t know why he is like this, why he keeps staring at Richie during campfires at Mike’s, or that when it gets colder Stan just pushes himself against Richie, and how it always feels like his body is burning when they touch. It’s like this moment, Richie sending a heatwave against Stan, and simultaneously melting his insides and making his brain tailspin.

Richie pokes his knee, and Stan looks back at him, and there is something in Richie’s dark eyes. He knows he is going to have to answer, and he knows he can’t hide it from him. Richie lifts his spidery hand towards Stan’s face, in a failed attempt to point at the swelling of Stan’s under-eye. _Stan, were you crying? Are you okay? What happened? Did Criss or Belch say shit to you? Do I-_ Stan grabs his wrist and pulls his arm down into his lap, and he fidgets with Richie’s hand, ignoring the stare Bev is giving them both. He looks down at Richie again and furrows his brows for a moment, “ _It’s nothing you can fix, Rich_ ,” is what he hopes he pushes in their secret language. Richie comes in quick with a response, “ _But I can still be here_.”

They are staring at each other for a fleeting moment, a conversation playing between them. While Stan also fights himself about what Richie wants him to do in front of Bev. He’s looking at Richie and then at Bev, asking him if that’s really what he wants right now. Richie keeps looking at him, telling him he knows it will make Stan feel better, and Stan really **hates** that _he’s right_. Stan flicks Richie on the forehead, and he sighs.

Stan nods at him and lays back down, his face heating up in embarrassment. He still isn’t looking at Richie, Stan doesn’t want to see the galaxy of freckles that sit under the atrocious brown and red glasses, and he doesn’t want to see the small slivers of skin he can see when those glasses are tilted. Richie decides to get closer, pulling Stan into his chest and ignoring the smirk that Bev shot them. Stan flips her off and Richie lets out a laugh. He doesn’t cry, despite the fact that he wants to, he just feels a lot calmer.

He hates that he feels relaxed, that Richie can make him feel this way. Most of the time Richie makes him riled up, with jokes that are offensive, or he will sometimes get just a little too close and a little too loud. That could never change the fact that when Richie is around, Stan can feel calm. It’s a sense of peaceful harmony one could get from seeing that they are on the final stretch to home after a long day of work, it’s the kind that comes with warm evenings inside on rainy nights or the way a hug from a loved one feels. Stan doesn’t know if it’s okay to feel that level of contentedness with another human being, or maybe it’s just wrong for it to be who they are. It’s incorrect to be what he is, to be what he thinks Richie is, to be what they are together.

That calls into question what they are: Stan and Richie. Are they best friends like they both claim, or is there something else? Maybe they don’t talk about it because they know no one cares, they know no one wants them either way, that without each other they would be _alone_. There is just something that Stan knows he feels around Richie, but he is so scared to place it.

Richie starts to rub up and down Stan’s back, whispering a whole entire monologue about the birds not being real, and that they’ll find the real birds together. It’s something stupid, considering Stan recognizes that the birds he sees are real, but it makes him smile into Richie’s shirt. He knows it’s something idiotic, a joke shared between them both, but it still makes that smoldering in his chest roar but at least his brain has finally slowed. There is no more churning gears spitting out the rhetoric his father spews at him every weekend during a service, they are finally braking.

“So really the only bird that’s real is your brethren–“and then Stan laughs, “Impressive word, Rich.” Richie lets out a snicker, “Shut up, bird boy. I will not hesitate to throw you into the quarry.” Stan laughs back, “You wouldn’t dare.” He gets a shit-eating grin in return before Richie quickly sits up and then picks up Stan, and then Richie starts to book it towards the quarry path. Stan begins to bat his hands against Richie’s back, “Let me down, you moldy tube sock!” He just gets a laugh in response, and Stan starts to struggle. Richie just grips him tighter and picks up his speed, “I swear to _God_ , Richie!” Stan exclaims as they reach the quarry, and Richie lets out an out of breath gasp. “Did Stanny-boy just use the Lord’s name in vain? How scandalous!” Richie shouts, twirling and causing Stan to grip onto his shirt so that the doesn’t fall off.

“I hate you,” Stan grumbles, giving up on trying to escape the grip. “Aw, did Stanley lose his bite?” Richie coos, stopping at the lip of the cliff, his grin growing bigger. “I hate you so much,” Stan breathlessly reaffirms as Richie eases him onto the ground. “I’m inclined to believe the opposite,” Richie trills and his eyes trail down to the shirt Stan is wearing under his tan cardigan. His face burns as he realizes that he’s wearing the shirt Richie left in his room months prior. _Fuck_ , he looks away from Richie’s face and towards the murky water below. He has an idea, and Richie is not going to like it. A smirk grows on his face and Richie raises an eyebrow at him before Stan pushes him off the cliff and into the quarry. The look of surprise on his best friend’s face causes Stan to cackle. “You’re fucking dead, Uris!” Richie shouts when he resurfaces, his hair falling over his giant glasses, and he pushes himself up in the water. Stan just smiles and walks back towards the blanket, passing Bev on the way. She just raises an eyebrow at him. and he shrugs, continuing down the untrodden path towards his circle.

He reaches his stuff and starts to pack it up, taking his time to fold the blanket and placing it nicely in the bottom of the bag and then placing the book and binoculars on top. Stan quickly shrugs the straps onto his shoulders and is about to walk out when wet arms trap him against a wet chest. “Hello, Richie,” Stan chuckles, and he knows what’s about to happen. “You’ve earned yourself an all-expense-paid trip to quarry water, Mr. Stanley!” Richie shouts, one of his various voices shifting into a weird announcer, lifting Stan up and racing towards the quarry once again. Stan just starts to laugh, letting himself be taken away to his punishment for the crime he committed. They are there, standing at the lip of the cliff, and Stan would blame his flushed face on the sun and not the volcano erupting behind his ribs. “Can I put my backpack down?” Stan asks, tapping slightly on Richie’s clasped hands.

An over-exaggerated huff leaves Richie’s mouth and he nods, “Fine.” Stan’s feet meet the ground and he turns to place the bag on the closest rock and book it but Richie is faster and lifts him again and throwing him over the quarry ledge. There is a small voice in Stan’s head that sounds like Eddie, nagging him about how dangerous that was. How they could get hurt, how many infections could kill him if they stayed in the water with an open wound, how they could hit the rocks, and get a concussion. Stan chooses to ignore it when he hits the water, a loud slap as it hit his back. The air was momentarily pushed out of his lungs, and he steadied himself with a rock near him. He lets out a gargled laugh as he waits for Richie to follow him into the water, and when he hears the telltale running footsteps of his best friend about to join him, he lets himself feel happy and loved. He ignores the chants and harsh words because it’s only them, hidden from the world, and that’s all he needs.

_His best friend and the…_

_(burning heat of the summer.)_


	3. and you hold me close inside the slaughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's talk to God.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize about the angsty nature of this one chapter, and I promise that it only gets worse.

Stan woke up, his shirt clinging to him with a layer of sweat. His hair was stuck to his forehead like he just stepped out of the memory. He swipes the curls off of his sticky skin, trying to keep them on a quaff on the top of his head. The t-shirt he is wearing is clinging to his torso, trying to make their two separate beings one. His lungs are making a futile attempt at breathing, heaving, and hoeing his way through the oxygen around him. The blankets get caught over his limbs as he tries to sit up, trying to trap him in their cottony grip. He grabs his phone, clicking it on and staring at the time displayed on his lock screen: five thirty-five in the morning. Stan sighs, deciding that a few hours is enough sleep for him, and getting up. He blindly searches for the switch for one of his lamps and places his feet on the carpeted floor. That’s _weird_ , it feels like he should have hardwood instead. 

He shakes his head and stands up, then he works on turning on the rest of the lights in his room. Stan starts to go through his vinyl records for something to listen to drive away the memories of _Stanley Uris and Richie Tozier_. Those two names feel like a heavy carcinogen on his tongue, slowly moving through his veins to find a piece of him to burrow into. A part of him to kill, to make an epicenter of his _brokenness_ , so that he can be deconstructed from the inside out. He picks his favorite Bloodwitch album, _Red Targets, No Cherubs_ , just for the fact that it’s familiar to now, the time before. It’s not a relic of the memories, it is something he found and liked without being told by some weird entity that it was something this _other Stan_ enjoyed. The female singer’s voice cuts through the silence and makes the small voices in his head died down, and he walks into his closet, trying to pick something to put on after his shower.

There is for some reason a sadness to how he eats breakfast alone, it’s like a shadow hanging over his head, or at least the place on the couch next to him. His mind isn’t even taking in the words being spoken on the television, it’s too preoccupied with his oatmeal and that black slimy feeling returning to his stomach once again. He grinds his teeth, trying to get himself organized, to try and tell himself that it’s just a bad feeling. _Not all bad feelings become a reality_ , and his anxieties don’t _control_ the universe. He just needs to pull it together, to do the rest of his morning routine, and get ready for the drive to school.

His brain is still being too loud on the ride to Westinghouse, and he keeps turning the music more and more loud, trying to distract from the screaming feeling behind his ears. That gut feeling keeps building, trying to desperately communicate that something is going to happen and it’s not going to be good. It won’t be good for him, for them, for anyone around him. Maybe he should just go back home and ditch school, drop out. His dad wouldn’t give two shits anyway, because his dad already considers him a failure, and maybe that’s why Stanley Barber hates himself _just as much_ as Stan Uris hated himself. Daddy issues can really do that to you, make you despise your own being. It shouldn’t be funny, but it really is, that it’s the one thing that they have in common, and it happens to be the complete and utter loathing towards one’s self.

When he thinks about it, he can’t but help relate to that different Stan. He understands why he wanted to die, why he never talked about his feelings, why he never spoke to anyone about anything. There are different reasons for that putrid feeling of self-denigration, but they are shared in a sense, a really fucked-up sense. _They were both destined to die._

Maybe that’s why he was given these visions instead of the others because he would understand. Understand what? Understand the self-loathing? Understand the pain? Or maybe he would understand that he is nothing but a cog in a machine that he will never be able to see. What if it’s because he has the closest situation to before, to the issues with his father, to the mental health issues, to the deep loneliness that lined his thin bones as he tears himself apart. It could be because the entity knew that it would destroy him, and it was a timeline where no one would fucking care if it drove him to be feverishly unraveled.

He pulls into his parking spot, putting the car in park, and pulling the keys from the ignition. The car stops its idle purrs and dies, allowing Stan his _esteemed_ silence. Most of the other students in the lot are getting out and walking towards the senior entrance doors, which are a direct link to the cafeteria. Usually, Stan would get out and join them, but he feels sick to his stomach, that acid returning in a new form. It’s not about Richie this time, it’s about something else, and it’s going to make him puke with the fear that it instills in his veins. His heart is thrumming and beating wildly like he just drank a dozen coffees and is trying to run a marathon. Dryness is clawing at his throat, making it hard to breathe through the sharp tendrils of pain that are beating against his jaw. This is a different acid, not like the bubbling stomach fluid from the dreams, but the kind that eats through human bone and devours the ground beneath.

He can’t swallow and if he did have water in the car, he is pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to drink it past the pain, or the desert that has now become his throat. 

His mind keeps racing, screaming, and clawing at him to get out, _get away_ , that this place is _no good_. That fear wasn’t there before, not during the beginning of these visions, but right now he’s starting to feel like that maybe they were there the whole time but melded with his own. Some of them are the ones he thinks are irrational, usually, they are the ones he held before this. He deems them stupid most of the time because they are just ones where he is waiting for it to go wrong when it probably won’t but he can’t help but feel like that _maybe_ it will. That’s usually what happens to him, he doesn’t expect bad things to happen and they do, if he worries about them, he can stop them. It happened with his mom, and he is forever kicking himself over in guilt about it, he should’ve known. He was just a kid, but he should’ve known, he should’ve realized that there were gears churning in her mind that meant demise. Syd doesn’t know that they have one thing in common, and Stan is terrified ever tell her the truth. He has been living in that lie for so long that maybe it’s real, if the lie became real it would suck, but at least she would be alive. She would be able to help him, be able to cradle him into safety.

It’s safe to say that Stan does not enjoy high school, and maybe he fears the day that someone tries to degrade him. It wouldn’t really be effective, considering he has known most of the kids in his grade since he was really young, but he just knows that one day it’s going to happen. The other shoe hasn’t dropped, and Stan is terrified of the way that it will eventually. He doesn’t let his mind roam to the fact that everyone looks at him with pity. He hates it, the way that everyone looks at him and immediately feel bad for him. The lie started years ago, why can’t everyone just forget it? Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to walk into school, he doesn’t have the fucking mental state to deal with all that fucking pity today. He hates all of it as much as he hates the fear, because they mix together, and create the worst feeling in the world. Stan is not good with words but if he had to describe it he would use licentious, a word that means something that is abjectly immoral, anarchic, and doesn’t follow social conventions. The word perfectly encapsulates how this all feels, like the lessons taught by the other Stan’s father, telling him that everything is _wrong_. Maybe before he felt this in waves, or to some degree. It just was never that potent, it never drowned him in a wave of dark lavender and gray, like how the other Stan’s fear does now. Maybe there was never the possibility that Stan would be touched by the harsh words, but it would never be able to top that complete and utter darkness that is the petrified energy surrounding him and choking him. It’s like his tongue has swelled past the roof of his mouth and he can’t breathe, he can’t move it from its position to allow oxygen in, it’s blocking the entrance for his nose.

The metal scrapes at the plastic as he tries to place the key in the slot with shaky hands. He can’t do this, he can’t step a foot in that building and act like he doesn’t want to throw up. There are no cars behind him as he backs out and speeds out of the parking lot and towards his house, not giving a single fuck about the fact that he is skipping school, Syd won’t care anyway. He is almost _one-hundred percent_ sure of that. As he drives further away from the school, the feeling subsides, making himself return to some state of normal. His nerves are still buzzing, but they are not telling him that he is going to die if he enters that building. Exhaustion is slowly joining him and replacing the anxiety, so he decides to actually head home. He probably wasn’t going to do anything worth his time if he went to class today anyway, he’d be too jittery and his mind would be racing. Stan makes the final decision to just go and sleep, and hope that the memories don’t visit in the daytime.

His body parks and locks the car on autopilot as he keeps trying to beat back the sudden tiredness that is settling into his bones. He should’ve known that his fraying nerves would snap one day and make him feel the onslaught every single anxiety that he had been trying to keep guarded in the back of his head. They make his mind race and he just wants them to shut up, so he slams his front door shut and clicks the lock with his left hand. Stan places his backpack on the hook and takes off his shoes, throwing them in the bin by the door and ignoring the fact that he missed it completely. He heads downstairs, not turning on the upstairs lights, and just barreling towards his door.

He takes off his jacket and throws it on the couch, heading towards his bed. Stan shifts off some of the dirty clothes and puts them on one of the armchairs, and he unbuttons his jeans and slips out of them and leaving them as a pile on his floor. The fatigue hits him as he tries to crawl into his bed, and he sighs. His comforter covers him in the same warmth, trapping him, and only allowing him to think, to face himself, to _dream_.

His eyes draw to a close and he is taken away from the living world, _his mind is still whirring, maybe he will…_

  
_(scream.)_

Stan’s throat is raw as he wakes up from another nightmare, and now he is eternally grateful that the student government elected him as Resident Assistant for his floor. His position allowed him to be living in a room on his own, without the fear of waking _another_ roommate with his screams of terror during the night. He has been having these episodes for as long as he can remember since he left the place he was born. (Where was he from again? He _can’t_ remember.) He has never found an explanation for them, no childhood trauma that he could remember, no fears that eat him up, _nothing_.

He wishes he had the names of any kids he grew up with so that he could ask them if they had them too. The problem was that he had none of those, childhood buddies. From what Stan can remember he has always been alone, no friends that he filled his days with, just him. If he really thought about it, really pushed past the weird mental barrier, he knew a kid he shot the shit with. A hazy name that he can never remember or write down, but he knows there was at least one, _maybe_. His parents are never any help when he asks them, always giving a faraway look before saying that they couldn’t remember, that it was years ago it doesn’t _matter_ , _Stanley_.

They never told him if there was a reason for the nightmares, and there is always a small voice screaming from the back of his mind, _you never told them_. That little echo sometimes takes over his brain for days at a time, telling him vague things, and he just wants to know if it’s linked to his screams and the crying and the way that he never remembers what those nightmares were. Or that if he did remember one, it would be a stranger, a person that Stan has never seen in his life. It also extends to multiple others, and their voices are always muted, and they are being destroyed by many things, and they start to cry for him.

It’s what happened tonight, the screaming kids telling him that they _need him,_ and another voice tells him that he never will be able to save them. His head hurts, the crying and screaming being so quick to cause strain. He sits up in his bed, pushing his greasy curls away from his eyes, and looking at the clock. Well, _shit_. It’s two o’clock in the morning, and he tries to lay back down. A piece of his mind is buzzing and begging for him to look for something, and his willpower is so low that he decides to get up and look. His legs are shaky as he stands up and walks over to his dresser. It wasn’t where he thought he was going to walk to, but for some reason, his shirt drawer is calling out to him. He opens it, searching behind the nicely organized and bright t-shirts, to find a folded object at the back. It’s semi-crushed and doesn’t fit in with the rest of his wardrobe, but it somehow sends a wave of calm over him. He unfolds it, not even caring to look at the pattern or what is said on it, and placing it on the dresser. It is a black t-shirt that is entirely too big for him, but he plans to wear it nonetheless. His soaked t-shirt tries to cling to him as he takes it off, but he is able to dislodge it from his body. It makes a small noise as he throws it into his almost empty hamper, and he cringes at the sound.

He takes the black shirt into his hands once again and throws it on, sliding it over his sweaty torso. It smells horrendous like it was taken to a hookah bar and covered in the sweat and smoke of the people around it. The usual disgust he feels dies at his throat, though, as he lets the shirt settle over his skin. It’s an odd feeling because now it has eased the clench in his hand and tenseness of his shoulders. A smile plays on his face for a moment and he doesn’t know why, but the shirt returned a piece of himself. It’s a section that had not made itself known before.

It's too late for Stan to actually take time and think it through, why the shirt is like this. He settles back down in his bed, hugging himself in the soft cotton, and then he realizes something for a second. The shirt radiates safety, warmth, something akin to being home again, and he doesn’t know _why_. He lowers his head for a moment to smell the collar once more, to figure out the source, and then it hits him. There is the smell of cinnamon, a hint of pine, and the heaviness of a campfire. Everything he associates with home is bundled up in this shirt, but so does all his sweaters, the same combination of smells and cologne. There is just something special about this foreign shirt, something that tells him it’s different, that it has something that his sweaters do not.

Stan doesn’t realize that it has a name, or that its past owner had a name. He can’t place it or find them, no number or address that he knows of, but for some reason, it sits in his heart. It became a parasite, working its way into his life source and took some for itself. He gave up on trying to find out why, the tiredness taking over once again, and leading him back to rest. The nightmares stay away from him, the shirt protecting him from any invasion.

He opens his eyes to bright light, causing him to groan and close them again. A chuckle sounds out from next to him, and that is the exact moment his brain decided to wake up. Stan opens his eyes and turns towards the person next to him, not realizing that their limbs are securely holding him to them. Adrenaline runs through his veins, making his heart beat a pitter-patter as fast as a rabbit’s. He opens his eyes, seeing Richie smiling down at him, and he sighs, “Dumbass, you can’t just watch me sleep all day,” he murmurs, closing his eyes once again and leaning onto Richie’s chest. “Can’t help it, you look so peaceful,” Richie replies, his voice not above a whisper. “Shut up,” Stan groans, “Go watch Bill through his window or something, I’m sure he’d appreciate the Peeping Tom.”

Richie just laughs in response, “Now you know I can’t do that, Stanley.” Stan opens his eyes again, “Oh, and why is that?” He has a small smile sitting on his lips, and he knows what Richie is implying. “It’s because I have to protect my professor from the clown,” Richie replies, and Stan furrows his brows for a tick. He laughs, but it sounds strained, “Rich, that is the weirdest thing you have ever said to me, are you spending too much time with Bev?” Richie looks at him again, his smile is frozen on his face. Something is up, “Hey Rich, is it okay if I go talk to Mike for a second?” He tries to move out of Richie’s arms.

“No,” Richie replies, his voice has a weird lilt, and his grip on Stan keeps tightening. He looks at Richie, “And why not? He’s just down the street?” Richie is acting weird, and Stan’s hair starts to prick up like a thousand eyes are on him. Stan studies his captor, noticing that Richie isn’t looking at him directly, that right now he feels too warm, and that Richie _isn’t_ breathing. “You’re _not_ Richie,” Stan says, terrified to put that sentence out into existence, it makes this real. He desperately wants Richie to come back at him, to tell him he’s just having a bad day, that he’s fine. The Richie holding him does nothing, his body locking Stan in a grip that he wants to escape. He starts to struggle out of their arms, trying to kick his legs against their hip and propelling himself out of the bed. The floor is hard as his side hits it full force, and he lets out a low whine. Stan backs himself away from the bed, staring at Richie frozen in time, and he tries to stand. He sprints towards the door; the metal doorknob is heavy in his hands as he tries to find the lock. It takes his whole entire strength to turn it, hearing the small click as it slowly moves forward. A giant sliver of white light blinds him as he pulls the door ajar, and the light starts to overtake the bedroom.

Everything is a nauseating white, a blurry, and bright plane that unfurls around him as he looks around. The intensity of the light is making his head hurt, and he tries to take a step forward when there is an imperceptible clack from behind him. He flinches, going to turn around and combat whatever took Richie. There is a half-finished cube at his feet, as big as a room, that is a dark brown color. Bookshelves line the back wall and there is a desk sat a few feet from the edges of the cut-off. A chair sits behind and in front of it, trying to come off as an office, an important meeting to start soon.

“Stanley, please sit down,” a deep voice echoes, no source that Stan would be able to find. He inhales a deep breath and takes a step into the brown and red office, it popping to life as his foot was placed on the first board. The objects jut out, becoming three dimensional the more he exists in the room. He sits on the chair in front of the desk, trying to keep his feet firmly on the floor. When the rest of the objects in the room come to a stop, a figure appears in the chair across from him. He recognizes them immediately, considering that they look like exactly like Richie. From the rat’s nest of the hair to the slight bucktooth, it’s him. The only difference is that its eyes are the same green you’d find in a box of crayons, a middle-tone shade named after the Earth. “Hello, Stanley. I am sorry to reach you at an inopportune time,” the deep voice speaks, Richie’s lips moving to the rhythm of the words, but it still booms around them.

It’s that exact moment that Stan realizes that he is still in his pajamas, which consists of a t-shirt and his boxers, and he looks away from the figure. He beats down the embarrassment with a bat inside his head before he turns back to face them. “Are you saying there’s a reason you puppeteered my best friend into being a creep?” Stan raises, crossing his arms and sitting back into the chair. “I assumed you would prefer this form over the others,” the voice speaks again. Stan’s cheeks flush for a moment, as he really doesn’t want to acknowledge that the entity was correct. If Stan was presented one of the others he most likely wouldn’t listen, they don’t exactly have his full trust. It could just be the rose-tinted glasses of his memories of Richie, but Stan knows he doesn’t trust the others, no matter that they are close to him. He still doesn’t trust them.

“I will take it that I made the correct decision,” the entity continues, “Stanley, there is a reason I have chosen to contact you, I have come with a warning.” Stan stares at their form, unsure of what to say in response. “What do you mean ‘ _a_ _warning’_?” His voice is hesitant, as he straightens himself in his chair. “What does this have to do with me?” He pushes, leaning forward, trying to push the fake Richie across from him to inch backward. “Your world is about to become changed,” the loud voice interrupts, “You are going to be split from this timeline.”

“ _What the fuck_ does that _mean_? What am _I_ supposed to do about it?!” Stan exclaims, the vagueness grating on his exceedingly frayed nerves. The entity sighs, “Stanley, neither you or I could change the cracks that are about to form. After it changes course, it will be even harder for me to find you.” Stan huffs, “Why are you telling me this? Why is it only me you’re talking to? What’s the point of a warning when I already know that something bad is going to happen!” He gets out of his chair, pacing, mumbling angry and frantic sentences to himself.

“ _I see_ , you’ve already gained the martyr’s ability,” they rest back into their chair, bringing their fist to their chin and going into deep thought. “I apologize if it has given you grief, he never got to hone it before…” Their voice trails off, leaving them in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry, what! What in the hell does that even mean?!” Stan yells, turning towards the desk. The entity sighs, exhaustion becoming a cloud hovering over their head, “The martyr had the ability to see the future, more of a courtesy from an… associate that we shared.”

It’s quiet for a moment, the figure looking ready for more questions, and the anger that flooded his veins are slowly stopping. “Why do you call him _that_?” Stan asks, some of the venom leaving his voice. “There is a piece of his memories that you have not accessed yet, and in those memories, there is an explanation, but right now you are not ready. They will come to you when you are, the life force controls me more than I control it.” Stan takes a breath, “Why did you choose me?” The entity looks straight at him, a puzzled expression on its puppet, “What do _you_ mean?”

“Why did you choose me for this? For the memories, for the powers, for the everything you have done to me,” He begs, his voice cracking midway through, “Why me? There were seven of them, seven of _us_ , why did you choose _me_?” There is silence, it sits on them both like it’s breathing down their necks. “There are many answers to that question, none of them are satisfying for _you_ , or for me to give,” the puppet shifts forward in the chair, “I wish to pay back those who made my job easier, gave souls that were no longer embodied a purpose.” In their hand appears a small sphere of light, it burns like fire with three bright dots in the center. “We all were in a prophecy, told by those native to your land, as a cautionary tale of fear. Seven heroes from different tribes, all meant to meet, to slay the fear. When the evil is defeated, those souls have no use besides being heroes, in the after they die **_bright_** and _fast_ ,” the light in their hand dies like they blew it out. “Their souls became intertwined upon death, except for one, _the martyr_.” They gesture at Stan, indicating that he is that one soul, that one lonely piece that will never return home.

One of the burning orbs appears in front of Stan, radiating an orange sort of warmth. It burns a light blue, which he finds utterly fascinating. Stan kind of wants to touch it, but he holds back his hand. “They are the only ones that I can repay, to even start to give them something better. I failed the martyr,” the light goes out and dissolved to ash in front of him. “There was a promise made upon his end, in which I continue their souls, give them purpose besides a fight that not all of them win. I started with th—” a loud distorted beeping interrupts their sentence. “I don’t have any more time, you have to stay safe, Stanley. I have no calling cards in the timeline you will enter, no other survivors.” Their surrounding starts to shake, the books falling off of the shelves and the drawers shaking on their tracts. The figure stands up, they are not affected by the crumbling of the world around them. They stand in front of Stan, the green boring into his brown eyes, “Protect yourself, Stanley.” Stan is about to ask a question when they take his face into their hands, “Don’t die,” their eyes fade into a dark brown. Stan is staring at Richie, _his_ Richie. There is so much he wants to say, to ask, to know, but before he can, “I mean it, asshole,” Richie taunts, kissing Stan on the forehead. Before Stan can even get a reply out, he is enveloped in light, taken away from the answers, from the person he desperately wants to talk to, from the dream. He wants to beg to go back, to _please let me see him again I feel so…_

_(alone.)_

Waking up is abrupt, his eyes snap open and his heart is running ragged in his chest. His alarm is what interrupted them, incessantly beeping until he turned it off and chucked his phone across the room. He stares at his ceiling, trying to calm down from the panic. There are tears spilling down his cheeks, and no matter how much he wipes away at them, they continue to fall. Everything that he just experienced is running through his brain, the _memory_ , the meeting with the _puppet_ , and _Richie_. It’s so much to process, to categorize in his already muddled brain, that he gives up momentarily so that he can sit up. For some reason, he feels like his room is changed, altered after his visit with the figure. He glances around, checking for anything noticeable, any distinct change, but he finds nothing.

Stan shifts his weight to try and get free from his blankets, and then there is a light thump to his left. He stops moving for a second, scared that there would be another, there isn’t. The floor is mostly clear of anything foreign, he finds, as he checks by leaning over the side of his bed. There is something there that wasn’t before, a compact block of something that is about the size of his palm. It looks to be made of wood, with a section of it that looks to be folded down. He shifts towards the edge of the bed and leans down to pick it up. Upon closer inspection, Stan finds out that it’s a pocketknife.

He turns it over in his hands, committing the dark wood to memory, but then he abruptly stops. There is an engraving on it. It is completely amateur in nature, looking like it was done with probably a box cutter or another dull blade, but it bears his name. Stan knows that he never owned this knife, that he hadn’t even found it himself, “Must be a present from…” he didn’t mean to say it out loud, but this was a gift from Richie himself. Not the entity parading as Richie, it was _him_. This was a secret, a big private gesture, Stan can feel it in his bones. Well not a secret to right now, but a secret to Richie and the other Stanley. It was important, and he knows that it is, because this was given to him directly. It was not left for him in this timeline, it was put in his room, telling him _something_.

What is Richie trying to tell him? What is he trying to get Stan to remember? He wishes he knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and sticking with me! I promise that the next chapter should be the last, and then I will work on finishing the rest of the series. (Also incredibly sorry that this part is particularly small...)
> 
> [ Red Targets, No Cherubs ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3FJwrJrce7rsrt6UkpuV4V?si=wUa_QGASQCa2WYu7lCkCaQ)


	4. and you look so much better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dynamic shift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, I changed the tags... if you do not like romantic Stozier I would suggest not reading the rest of the series because it will be heavily featured.

Instead of going to school, Stan calls in sick, and he decides that he is going to figure out all of the pieces that he was given, and what else that he needs to think about. This wasn’t going to help the entity, but it’s his only defense against his brain completely combusting from everything that was given to him. He opens up a clean notebook and starts to pencil down the names of the people that he knows by now: Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier, Bill, Mike, Eddie, Ben, and Bev. He only knows that they are linked, Richie the only one with a clear relationship.

He starts to detail every dream that he can remember, lumping the deaths into one category, separating the ones with Richie by the ages that he thinks they all are, and how important they are to him. Well, maybe not important, _special_ is probably the correct word. There is also the list of things he has now that were catalysts, events that were catalysts, and people who are catalysts. When it’s all pushed together it feels like Stan is starting a novel rather than mapping out his “dreams” and the people he sees in them.

There is still no identification on where they are, what year they take place, and what the actual monster is. All he has for those are fragments that went by too fast in a memory, and they only call it a devil town. He wishes that this place isn’t real, that may be here it doesn’t exist, but he has a feeling that maybe it does. Maybe he will have to go there to end something, he doesn’t want to go back, he never wants to go back. _Doesn’t that fucking turtle see that he doesn’t want to go back! He already died because of It once, he doesn’t need to do it again._ Stan stops writing for a moment, his mind backtracking on those words that took over his mind. He’s lost one of the bigger pieces of his identity, he is losing every bit of who Stanley Barber is every day, but he just lost the largest piece. Every other part is being held on by a thin thread, always ready to leave him at any moment. Stanley Uris is taking over his brain, he has the shears, though, lobbing off the Stanley Barber bits of his brain, he is the one cutting at them. The blades may be dull, but they have an _impact_. Stan just wants him to _stop_ , to take everything that he knows now away, he wants to tear it all to shreds.

All of those stupid fucking memories of Richie, of his crying, of Stan’s breakdowns, even the happy ones, where they are all smiles and tangled limbs. He wants it gone, he wants to paint over them and boil them in a vat of the same acid that they shove down his throat. Fuck Stanley Uris, fuck Richie, fuck _that stupid turtle_ , fuck everything. Why was he cursed with this, really? Why was he _the one_? What, because someone made a promise? What, because someone _died_? Why did his life have to be ruined for a **_measly promise made by a coward?_** He doesn’t _understand_.

Stan throws the notebook down, standing up and heading into his bathroom. He slams the door shut and leans into his shower, turning the knobs and setting off the water. Stan throws his clothes into a pile on the floor and steps under the hot stream, he doesn’t even flinch at the completely scalding water. He starts to scrub his body with soap, trying to rid himself of the stupid fucking _memories_ and the _warnings_ and the _anxiety_. Soap stings his eyes as he washes his hair, and he doesn’t care that his skin is bright red. When he gets out of the shower, he can’t feel anything but the stinging, and he tries to hold his mind in his life, _in Stanley Barber_. He’s so fucking tired of Stanley Uris.

He tears apart the written notes and sketches and doodles out of the notebook and throws them in the trash, stomping them down into the rotting food and packaging. There is a heap of all the clothes in the middle of his room, and he can’t find it in himself to burn them. They sit there, taunting him, telling him to return to them, _they need him_.

They don’t _need_ him, he has to repeat to himself, they don’t need _him_. They are not important, they don’t need him, he doesn’t _need_ them. Those memories and those people are nothing to him, they are _nothing_ to him, they can’t affect him _anymore_. He is Stanley Barber; he is Stanley Barber and they can’t hurt him anymore. He is Stanley Barber, and Richie Tozier means nothing to him. He is Stanley Barber, and Stanley Uris can’t control him _anymore_. They are just names he heard on the street, insignificant to him, they mean _nothing_ to him. They won’t control him anymore, _they can’t_.

Stan’s legs fold underneath him, sending him onto the cold kitchen tile. Right now, it feels like the piece of twine that was holding his brain and heart together just snapped, sending him to one of his worst breakdowns in the last couple of months. Tears are spilling down his face, and falling down onto his thighs. His whole entire body is shaking, giant convulsions that make him feel nauseated, and his lungs are constricted, like he is under a vise clasp. Stan tries to hold himself, completely crushing his torso with his arms, and he wishes that he wasn’t alone. He’s so tired of being isolated, of being overlooked, of _being Stanley_.

He wants to be someone that people remember, someone that people care about, someone who can be loved, but he knows that he _never_ will be. Stanley Barber is meant to be hurt, meant to be alienated, he will never be anything other than a short means to a brief end. The memories are trying to enforce that, he’s starting to realize. They want him to remember that no one loves him, that no one cares, because he is not the other Stanley. He has the misfortune of being Stanley Barber; of being _himself_. It’s his fault that he’s not the other Stanley, he was too much of an idiot to realize that until right now. He never will have someone love him as deeply as the others loved Stanley Uris, and the figure he saw wants him to _remember_ that.

None of this was because of a promise, but a means to butcher Stanley Barber. He looks like the other Stan, but he never will be him. Maybe that’s why he is being overtaken, so that he can stop being a failure, and be the person everyone loves. The other Stan would find a way to bring them back, to allow the others in, to let them all return to each other, like the _fucking turtle_ so desperately wants them to. He kind of wishes that it would end already, that Stanley Uris would just take him over so that Stan doesn’t have to face himself anymore. There was so much of his time wasted, of the entity’s schedule spoilt on his reluctance to be a part of _this_. If he was the other, he wouldn’t be alone anymore. He’d have the rest.

He was stupid to ever think that the memories made him special, ever made him important to the grand scheme of things. They don’t, they just make him a pawn to be played; to be skipped over, to be killed. That could be what the bad feeling is about, maybe they are finally going to kill him, strike him down, as a final good riddance to what a failure he is. There is a part of him that welcomes that, welcomes death, inviting it to do him in. It screams at Stan that he deserves it, he’s such a disappointment, he’s nothing to anyone. Usually, that’s an exaggeration, if said to most people, they usually have at least one person who would. Except, the humorous thing is that Stanley Barber has no one, well, no one who would _genuinely_ care. Syd and his dad would lie that they are sad, play the grieving friend and father, but they would be _grateful_ , finally happy that Stanley Barber is no more. It fills him with this thick layer of dread, it’s combined with his fear, his sorrow. He doesn’t try to fight it, allowing those dark feelings to take over his body.

There is an all-consuming weariness sitting over him right now, it’s overpowering the thoughts, stopping the train on its track. His eyes are drooping closed, sleep trying to give him an escape from the spinning wheel of bad thoughts. He lowers himself onto the floor, ignoring the chill it sent up his spine. Stan closes his eyes for the final time, releasing a slight sigh, and drifting away from the floor and into his mind completely. _Maybe he shouldn’t have…_

_(gone to bed.)_

His eyes flick open, and he can’t breathe. The ceiling above him is not the pale beige of his childhood, it’s a rich royal blue. Usually, the color calms him, letting him return to some form of a relaxed state, but it’s not working tonight. His mind is still racing, trying to figure out what he just dreamed of, why he felt scared in his head. He knows he just screamed, his throat feeling becoming sour by the second. Patty is still asleep next to him, but he does not feel comfort in her slow breathing. There is something about him that feels restless like he can’t sit in their bed for any longer or he’ll destroy himself trying to find out what scared him so much. There is nothing that he could think of, nothing that scares him so much that he screams and cries.

Stan has exhausted all of his sources of information of his childhood, his mother is dead, and his dad close behind. All of this has led him on a wild goose chase that is never-ending, and it’s starting to take a toll on him. Patty has been patient with him, with the nightmares that only seem to get worse as they age, but she can never soothe them. Whenever she touches him during his catatonic states, she always relays, his screams get _worse_. He will outright beg her to stop touching him, to get a person he never fully says the name of, and he’ll hold himself mumbling some long-forgotten lullaby that Patty says he does every time. It’s why there is a small piece of him that is glad that right now she is asleep, not awake to make this episode worsen.

He loves her, he truly and thoroughly does, but during his terrors, he is a different person. That other him wails, he curls into a ball until he falls asleep again, he asks for names and asks her why, _why can’t they come up, momma? I’ve been a good boy, I want to see them, please, they are my friends. They know what’s wrong with me, momma, please._ He will hold himself and tell her to take away _the woman_ , a woman he never remembers, but he knows she hurt him. It only gets worse the more he is in that state because nothing works, and Stan wishes that he could fix this. Patty doesn’t deserve _that person_ badgering her, screaming at her, begging her to get away from him.

They’ve asked any neurologist or somnologist about his condition, but they found nothing. Even after they ran a test of electrodes on his head when he went into one of these episodes, and they said that nothing was unordinary about his brain activity, it most likely was just an overactive imagination in lucid dreaming. Stan didn’t believe it one bit, but that’s all they could get. He knows that there is more than that to it, there is something that is actively seeking him out, making him have these episodes. _A reminder_. That’s all his brain supplies in the little voice, then leaving quickly once again. A reminder? For what exactly? He doesn’t know, and maybe he doesn’t want to find out.

He shifts the covers off his lap and stands up. The air of their room is chilly, which is surprising for the humid nights of Atlanta. He steps away from the bed and braving for the unknown that is the dark depth of the rest of their bedroom. The humming underneath his skin is trying to pull him in the direction of their closet, so he allows his feet to carry him there. He clicks on the light and looks at the shared closet, all of Patty’s sweaters and nice fitting jeans and skirts are all hung to his right, and his side is full of button-ups and sweater vests and suit jackets. There is a dresser sitting next to his shoe rack, and he inches towards it, the vibrations in the air increasing. He opens the top drawer, finding what he needed right at the front.

It unfurls as he picks it up and there it is, the same shirt that held him together during his college days, the hideous band shirt that holds memories he hasn’t unlocked yet. There is something interesting to find that even though this shirt holds such importance to him, he doesn’t even listen to the band mentioned on it. The unfortunate thing is, he outgrew the shirt a couple of years ago, but he still keeps it around. He doesn’t know why he does, but whenever he tried to get rid of it, he backed out and hid it. Patty probably doesn’t know that he still has it, that he never threw it out as he promised her he did. He hates being a liar and hates the guilt that usually eats up his stomach when she suggests another spring cleaning. She doesn’t know, and she shouldn’t know that he still has the ratty shirt that he told her was donated. The shirt that is for some reason is a good enough excuse to lie to his wife, to hide that he is keeping it close to him.

Stan doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to explain to her why, that every time he considers giving it away a small little voice screams in the back of his head that it’s a bad idea, that he needs it, that he will never be able to rest again without it. He’s scared of that voice and ferocity that it protects the shirt and some other objects in his life. It’s the same with his childhood bird dictionary that is now long defunct, with his beaten-up childhood copy of “ _Beloved_ ” by Toni Morrison, with a falling apart dark green yarmulke that he hasn’t worn in almost twenty years.

Whenever he considers throwing them or donating those items, that voice swoops in and tells him of their importance, tells them he needs them, that they should never part with him as long as he lives. He also doesn’t understand why whenever the small idea of relinquishing these items from their care, he feels this feverish want, this weird frenzied desperation on keeping these items in his life, in keeping them close. He doesn’t know why, and he kind of wishes that voice would shut its stupid mouth, why it won’t let him get rid of things that he no longer uses.

That’s one of the points that they never brought up to the doctors, that there are objects that calm him in his mania, that makes his shoulders ease and his brows smooth over. He’s sure it was weird in their college days for Patty to be woken up by him screaming, by his wailing, and then for it to be soothed over by allowing him to flip through the books or giving him the shirt. They ignored that part of his nightly trepidations whenever telling others of his ailment, and maybe Stanley should be happy for it. He will never have to explain to their friends why he finds comfort in pieces of his past more than his own wife. It would not go down well if he tried to, and the words would still bunch up in his throat, choking him with shame.

It may not fit him anymore, but he can still have it close to him, still hold it in his hands. So that’s what he does, he holds the shirt close to him, like it’s an old friend. A comfort that he never wants to lose, and one he has for no reason besides the memories of it allowing his mind some clarity throughout his strenuous nights. It’s become a habit to do work whenever his episodes jostle him enough to make sleep feel unattainable, so that’s what Stan does. He takes the shirt, his glasses, and his briefcase into the living room and settles down at the breakfast bar. Stan drapes the shirt over his lap as he swipes the glasses onto his nose.

Work comes easy to him during the night when he knows he should be asleep, so that’s why when his head is finally cleared it’s now blatantly obvious to him that there is something missing. A giant hole sits where his memories should be, and it feels like his heart has been pulled into multiple different directions, and that’s when he realizes that he doesn’t know who he is anymore. The man sitting on the barstool is not who he is, but maybe a watered-down version, the mirage he showed his parents growing up. He was stifled, he was destroyed, and now, now he needs to figure out who he is. Hopefully, he can find out soon, _before the… the…_

_(sirens blare.)_

The cold kitchen floor is sending waves of chill up his back and legs, and then he opens his eyes. Every part of his body aches, his legs screaming and his back cracking as he attempts to unfurl himself. A pool of tears sits on the floor where his head was, _huh, he didn’t know he cried while he slept_. He attempts to wipe at his face but his hand is full of pins and needles, and it hurts to flex it. Stan sighs, and he starts to slowly move, struggling to stand up. Most of his body feels numb, and it’s making him feel like a ragdoll as he tries to throw his limbs against the counter. He is able to shakily get on his feet, his body crying out for him to go back onto the floor, to just lay there forever until he dies. It’s tempting, like a siren song leading ships to their doom, but he works past it, moving towards the hallway.

His sweaty body glides against the wallpaper as he makes it towards his door, in hopes of being able to find out what time it is, and hopefully what day it is. It feels like he has slept for years, and his back’s protests are echoing the same message. The stairs are an absolute mess as he tries to make it down them, and he is lucky that when he does trip, it’s down the last step. He is still sprawled out on the floor, his whole body swamped with pain, and he releases a groan as he tries to sit up. The lights are still off in his room, and there is no light coming in from the flood-windows, so it can’t be the afternoon. Stan is able to reach the couch, propping himself up on the semi-harsh fabric. He is panting after the grueling task that it was to get himself down there.

Stan spots his phone on the floor, only a few inches away from him, and he must’ve not realized that he sent it flying during his earlier breakdown. His body objects to his initial reaction to grabbing it off of the floor, so he inches his feet towards it. It takes a couple of minutes of small movements for Stan to reach his phone, in which he attempts to pick up with his feet. After a couple of attempts, he is able to lift his phone onto his stomach, which results in more aching as the phone lands with a smack. He picks it up off of his lap with a shaky hand, and he presses the power button. The time is a bright white that screams out that it’s two-ten in the morning, which is just _great_! There also aren’t many notifications besides some of his apps trying to call him back in, but he does see a confirmation text from Mercedes, she sent her address and gave him the time to pick her up. Which, don’t get him wrong, is great, but he also forgot that she existed for the last twenty-four hours. Her existence flew out the window when he couldn’t step a foot inside the school, and maybe he feels like shit about it. He didn’t _mean_ to.

He’s going to have to go to school today, he knows he is going to have to, because he won’t be able to go to homecoming without being in school that day, it’s just a weird thing Westinghouse makes students do. Stan places his phone down on the couch cushion next to himself and he tries to pull the throw blanket off of the floor and onto his lap. He might as well try to sleep the next couple of hours, and hope that maybe everything about the other Stan leaves him alone for once. The blanket takes a couple of tugs to fully get onto the couch, and his alarms are set, and that’s when he closes his eyes. Slumber takes him over with ease, and that’s when he realizes… _I’m not_

_(dreaming.)_

His eyes open into a dark tunnel, a very dark cerulean pool of water, and slush at his feet. He can’t smell anything but for some reason, he knows that it’s not supposed to smell like fresh linens or lavender. There isn’t a clear path out of there, no weird light window or stupid entity to come and save him, but for some reason he doesn’t need to find a way out, he knows where to go. His soaked feet start to carry him through this rank tube of utter garbage, his footsteps loud and sloshing in the shitty water. He passes many other passageways, but for some reason, his feet continue to lead him, and he’s starting to think that this isn’t going to be a memory. This is something else.

He finally stops at a very large opening, which required stepping up out of the water and going down a very small entranceway. The water slaps against the concrete after he takes his feet out of it and places them on the platform, causing a lot of it to ripple. He doesn’t know if that’s the actual physics of water, but considering he isn’t awake right now, it doesn’t matter if the water is correctly flowing. Stan starts towards the room, a weird buzzing worming it’s way under his skin and telling him that there is something off, there is going to be something more in this chamber. His wet foot makes a squish sound against the harsh floor as he takes a step into the unknown. 

After he places his second foot into the room, a door closes behind him, it appeared out of nowhere. “Wh-” Stan goes to ask, but he is interrupted by the sound of loud clambering footsteps of a creature on the other side of the door, “Stanley!” It screams, the distorted voice causing the hair on his arms to stand up and for his heart to pound in his chest. He goes to take a step forward, but a hand appears to cover his mouth and a body is pressed against him, most likely to keep him still. The lumbering footsteps of the monster outside fade, their voice fading into the echoes and raging waters. He is released from their grip and when he goes to turn around and give this stranger a piece of his mind he is met with dark brown eyes and ratty hair, the long freckled limbs, the buck teeth, and finally, the hideous monstrosity that is somehow considered a pair of glasses. 

“Richie?” He whispers, his voice trembling. The boy opposite him nods, and Stan doesn’t know what comes over him but he rushes at Richie for a hug, keeping him close. “Woah there, partner!” Richie jokes, his southern accent making an appearance for a moment, “I know you missed me, but not that much!” Stan laughs, “Beep beep, asshole.” He pulls away for a second, looking at Richie. “It’s really you, right?” He asks, his voice shaking. Richie nods, “As if you could get rid of me that easily, Stanley!” They both snort, devolving into giggles, their grip on each other tightening for a millisecond. The fear that had been sitting on Stan finally evaporates, because he’s no longer alone, he’s with Richie. It’s been so long since he actually saw Richie, or at least was able to talk to him, to touch him, to just feel safe in his presence. He places his forehead at Richie’s collarbone and stays there, keeping himself imperceptibly close to his best friend.

Richie starts to rub up and down his back, words not being shared between them at all, they both needed this. Time somewhat melts when they are like this, holding each other in this decrypt cavern. It was weird, somewhat, that he never felt the need to interrupt, to say anything to Richie. He has spent so many months, hoping, wishing, _wanting_ to talk to Richie, to get some answers for what the fuck he sees; but now that he’s here he just can’t help but feel content. He doesn’t need to speak, he doesn’t need to ask, because Richie has him, he doesn’t need any of the answers when it’s just them, because that’s what Richie is. He has been the solution, the conclusion, the finale the whole entire time.

He slowly shifts his hand up to Stan’s hair, carding through the curls, moving it then to Stan’s cheek. He lifts Stan’s head lightly off of his chest and meets his eyes, and that’s when Richie smiles. It’s slow, but it’s so incredibly warm, a sanguine ambrosia dripping like sap from a tree into Stan’s stomach, coating the butterflies in this warmth and making them beat harder against his abdomen. Stan can feel himself smiling back, the quirk of his lips, and his face heating up in retaliation for being in such close proximity of the object of his affections. Richie rubs his left thumb across Stan’s cheek and he goes to move in until a loud sinister scream echoes through the cavern. The adrenaline in his veins turns sharp and his heart starts to pitter-patter into his ears and he doesn’t know what to do until there is a large cracking sound, a giant creature falling down from the ceiling.

It looks as if a centaur went wrong, a man mixed with some form of hellscape monster for a bottom half. Stan can’t stop shaking but Richie just smirks, and Stan is about to question him about his lack of fear towards the creature when Richie’s hand moves from his cheek to his shirt collar. Stan’s mind takes a couple of seconds to process that next action, but Richie pulled them together, their lips touching and personal space absolutely nonexistent. He really wants to ask why, but his mind is too preoccupied with the fact that Richie is kissing him. It feels like an electric current was running through his whole entire body, and his brain was decidedly taking it well, it not producing any thought outside of the fact that he is kissing Richie Tozier, his best friend, his love, his scarecrow, his _everything_. There is no going back after this, no way to take back his beating heart, or the way his hands automatically grabbed at his back so that they can be closer than before. He doesn’t know if that’s actually possible if they could physically get closer than they are right now, practically attempting to fuse together.

Richie is the one to pull away, his heavy breathing warming up Stan’s already burning face. Stan’s brain still feels like cotton, all of his senses, “It seems that our big friend realized that something was amiss about your dream tonight, Stanno,” Richie tells him, and before Stan could say anything, Richie pecks his lips and lets go of him. “I’ll see you soon, my dove,” he winks and rushes towards the giant monster. He can’t chase after him because his surroundings brighten, a white overtaking his vision and then he hears it, _his alarm_.

Stan tries to take one more glance at Richie, _but it’s all too bright…_

_(the “I love you,” dying on his lips.)_

His alarm is condescending in a way, it beeps at him in the way a parent nags at a child to wake up. It kind of ruins the weird happiness that took over his body upon reuniting with Richie. Okay, maybe it’s beyond weird, the way he feels so warm and golden like spring afternoons, like honey, like the sweetness of sap. Maybe it’s distracting him from the fact that he wanted to proclaim something, it’s really fuzzy what the words were, but the way they felt on his lips sent a shockwave of pure joy up his spine, and straight to his brain. He was meant to say those words, he needed them to breathe, he wanted to say them out loud, but he has a feeling he won’t be able to, not anytime soon.


End file.
